AMBER - RARE RAW MATERIAL FROM PALAEOLITHIC SITES

The paper aims at presenting two nuggets of corroded amber found on Piestany site in Slovakia dated to the Upper Palaeolithic Gravettian culture. There are not further information about the context of their discovery. One can assume that migrating people could bring around amber together with Baltic flint from the Baltic Ice Lake shore, maybe with the aim to use it as amulet, concerning the exceptional qualities of the material. The published succinite nuggets from Moravany nad Váhom-Banka have increased rare European finds of fossil resins from the Palaeolithic period, whereby there was no evidence for gathering or using of amber in the Palaeolithic on the territory of Slovakia. Based on finds at Palaeolithic sites in other countries, amber begun to occur first in the form of gathered nuggets without traces of further working as early as at the beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic in the Aurignacian culture or later in the Gravettian culture. Much numerous finds (worked for personal ornaments or amulets as well as unworked pieces) occurred at the end of the Upper Palaeolithic (Magdalenian, Mezin culture) and in the Final Palaeolithic in cultures with shouldered tools (Hamburgian, Creswellian), backed tools (complex Federmesser) and with tanged tools (Ahrensburgian, Swiderian).